Page 5 of Adventures in Spring

I hear her sigh. “Okay. That sounds good too. But we can definitely get a pet, right?”

“Yes. We will get one, I promise.”

“You know you can’t break promises, Mom,” Kaito chimes in.

My parents are chuckling as we move our stuff into the house.

“Smart boy. Make sure the ground rules are set.” My brother Kentaro snickers.

I glare at him . “Wait till you have babies. They’re gonna kick your ass.”

That only makes him laugh more.

“My future babies will be perfect.”

My other brother, Tadashi, doubles over as he laughs at Kentaro.

“I don’t know why any of you are laughing. You were both such rascals and picked on your sister a lot. Your children will be even more rascally than you.” Our mom laughs.

“Who said anything about me having babies?” Tadashi laughs more.

He gets a dirty look from our mom for that one. We all know that she loves being a grandma and she wants lots of grandbabies. But Tadashi has never really had a serious relationship. Just lots of short ones. It drives our mom nuts. She’s even gone so far as to set him up with girls she meets when she’s out with friends. I laugh because sometimes I think he moved to Hawaii to get away from being set up by our mom.

“I wanted to thank all of you for coming with me. And helping us with everything,” I say to my family.

My brothers come over and hug me.

“We’re always here for you, Emi. If you need anything, I’ll get on the next plane and come back,” Tadashi says as he hugs me again.

I’ve been lucky, my brothers and I have always been close. They’ve been my protectors since we were kids. Kentaro was the first to move away, but he didn’t go far. He moved to the city for medical school. And now that he’s a surgeon, he comes back home on his days off. Then, Tadashi decided to move to Hawaii and became a police officer. He seems really happy there. So as much as I miss him, I love how happy he is.

Now it’s my turn to spread my wings and try to fly. I just never thought I’d be doing this without Seth. But I know he’s watching over us. I just want to make him proud.

“We should go out for a nice dinner after we finish getting everything inside,” my dad says as he walks by me.

“That sounds nice. I saw an Italian restaurant in town, we can eat there.”

It takes us another four hours to get everything in and the furniture set up. My mom said she’ll help me organize the rest later since they’re not leaving for another two to three weeks. I’m trying not to think about how much I’m going to miss them when it’s time for them to leave.

We all get showered and ready for dinner.

“Can I have ravioli?” Miyuki asks.

“If they have it, yes.” I smile at her.

“Yay!”

I watch my kids run around and play before we head out. Kaito is a clone of his daddy and Miyuki is mine. I love watching them grow up and seeing how they change. I’ve been lucky, they’re really good kids. They don’t usually answer back to us or throw tantrums. And so far, they love school. This new school year, the twins will be in first grade. I made sure that they’re in the same class. We talked about it, and they said they would feel better being in the same class this year.

Rhett

“We should go out for dinner,” Emma says to us. “We can close up for an hour and go to Arturo’s.”

“That sounds good. Maybe we should call ahead and put in our orders. That way they know we’re coming and we can eat a little faster,” Paxton says.

“Sounds good to me. I’ll go find Lukas and Felicity to get their orders.”

Paxton and I give Emma our order and she goes off to find the others. My mind drifts back to the woman I saw twice today. I hope she comes in again, she had such a pretty smile.

---